In many parts of the world, June is PRIDE Month, filled with events that *should* center LGBTQI+ people.

June is the month for PRIDE because the Stonewall Riots took place in New York City in late June 1969—a response to a police raid at the gay bar Stonewall Inn.

Despite transgender women and people of colour being excluded from early marches for LGBTQI+ rights, their participation in the initial riots was instrumental and they are now being recognized for their integral roles in creating the change that has led to the PRIDE we know today.

Equality Bahamas hosts PRIDE in July, keeping the advocacy, education, programming, and visibility from June going. We choose not to participate in capitalist activities that increase profit for businesses while exploiting and increasing risk for LGBTQI+ people. Rainbow-washing is not for us. We are focused on the specific needs of LGBTQI+ people in The Bahamas. We work to increase access to human rights, and PRIDE in July brings life-sustaining care and support directly to LGBTQI+ people.

This July, we’ve got a great lineup of in-person and online events featuring LGBTQI+ artists and allies.

Check out all the events at a glance here.

July 9 –Queerly Beloved: PRIDE Writing Workshop with Muriel Leung

In a time of escalating violence towards LGBTQ+ communities, what are new stories we can tell outside of the oppression that surrounds us? In this writing workshop for Pride month, let us write poems and the beginning of stories that tell of pleasure, joy, and the vitality of resistance. How can we alchemize the most brutal parts of the world in which we live into something that gives us a way forward? Queerly beloved, newer writer or seasoned, come one and all. Let us write together.

Muriel Leung is the author of the novel How to Fall in Love in a Time of Unnamable Disaster (W.W. Norton & Company) and several collections that include Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books), Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), and Images Seen to Images Felt (Antenna) in collaboration with artist Kristine Thompson. A Pushcart Prize nominated writer, her writing can be found in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, Fairy Tale Review, and others.

July 12, 19, 26 – PRIDE Group Therapy with Jessica Russell

Next, we’re hosting online Group Therapy with Jessica Russell on three Saturday afternoons in July.

Jessica is a therapist, feminist, and human rights advocate. She provides talk therapy for individuals, couples, and families, at Family Wellness Centre in Grand Bahama. Her main areas of focus are anxiety, depression, grief, relationship issues, and trauma. She holds a Masters Degree in Psychology, a certification in Domestic and Sexual Violence, and a passion for human rights and gender equality. After working with Equality Bahamas since 2020 at various events, she officially joined the Board in 2023. Ever conscious of the injustices in the real world, she enjoys films and tv shows where the villain receives an appropriate fate.

Register for each session at the links below:
July 12
July 19
July 26

July 24 – Storytelling for Change with Sekiya Dorsett

​Join us Thursday, July 24 for a virtual talk with GLAAD Award-winning filmmaker Sekiya Dorsett.

July 30 – Making Our Words Visible: A Pride Book-Making Workshop